Dr. Thomas Insel, chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) and director of the National Institute of Mental Health can be found on several Internet sites talking about autism. Over the last few months, he's been to places like the National Institutes of Health and the Mass. Institute of Technology lecturing on the disorder plaguing one percent of U.S. children.

In Dec 2009, he spoke at MIT. (HERE) This was four months after he testified on autism before U.S. Senator Tom Harkin's subcommittee last Aug. In Aug, Insel still wasn't sure if there are really more kids with autism, but by Dec, he was convinced--the increase is real.

Personally, if I were in Insel's position, I'd be really worried. One percent of children are autistic. One in every 70 boys is autistic. Insel acknowledges that something in the environment is responsible for this global explosion in a neuro-developmental disorder and he readily admits he has no clue what is behind this.

I think of the autism epidemic on a par with other national emergencies like the San Francisco earthquake, Pearl Harbor, and the World Trade Center Bombing. In many ways, it's worse. In those other crises, we understood what happened and we could take action. With autism, no one can tell us anything. Insel's MIT speech epitomized this paralysis.

What's stunning to me whenever Insel talks about autism, is his relaxed, smiling manner. He's the guy in charge of a federal committee created by Congress to address autism and he's spent years telling us he knows nothing. And he's not worried. I've watched hours of Insel discussing autism, at MIT, at NIH, and in an interview with Dr. Peter Bearman from Columbia University. At the end of each talk he leaves us with autism, the mystery, and he calls for more studies.

At MIT, Insel presented his usual autism power point slides and went through the standard autism info. He defined autism. He showed videos of a normally progressing baby who regressed into autism between one year and 18 months and ended up as a non-verbal 14 year old. This regression was described by Insel as "really a very interesting problem, which we don't fully understand."

Insel presented slides of brain scans and DNA strands and talked about genetics.

Power point: "Finding the Genes for Autism"

He noted that 10 percent of cases have a genetic link.

"One of the biggest risk factors for developing ASD...appears to be paternal age."

"The father doesn't have autism, but his offspring would."

"The concept here has been, as fathers, as men age they have more divisions of their germ cells.... [This] could explain why the father doesn't have autism, but his offspring would. ....This increase in prevalence that we're seeing could be explained in part by aging paternity in the population."

In talking about the genetics of autism, Insel used words like "spectacular," "striking," and "amazing."

In the end, he had to admit that genes "won't explain all cases."

THE INCREASE IS REAL

Next Insel turned to prevalence. "There's this very interesting discussion that still goes on about prevalence and what is happening over these last two decades."

"In the 1980s,...I remember having to look far and wide to actually find a child with autism."

"I'd never seen any children with autism through all of my training."

"I didn't actually know anyone that I trained with who'd actually seen a child with autism."

He said he'd seen the data from PEDIATRICS magazine putting the current rate at one in 90, but he admitted, "I'm not sure what to do with these data.""I don't know of any data quite like this over a 20 year period which shows this striking increase."

Insel said we don't know what's driving this. We know it's not because of people who were labeled something else. He said it's not diagnostic substitution.

It sounded like he was talking about a real emergency. A shocking number of our children now have a disorder that was previously unknown. Insel can't tell us why and there's no way to prevent more children from becoming victims. Amazingly, Insel isn't worried that the one in 90 rate might get worse. What if it's one 50 in the next two years?

Insel said we need to understand that this is a "synaptic disorder" (relating to or involving a junction between nerve cells).

"I said before this isn't just genetics... There have to be environmental factors."

"We have barely been able to scratch the surface."

"There are something like 80,000 potential toxicants."

Insel talked about prenatal exposures to toxins.

POWER POINT:

"Environmental Influences in Autism: What do we need?..."Why do we care?"

Insel never really addressed the "Why do we care?" question, but he ended the lecture talking about lots of things from better detection and intervention to having more studies.

He kept showing us brain scans of children and talking about neuro-imaging while he continued to say he didn't know very much.

He did say he believes this is really "10, 20, 40 disorders."

As far as what the environmental exposure behind autism might be, Insel was at a loss. The one thing he is sure of is that VACCINES DON'T CAUSE AUTISM.

"The only thing I would argue has actually been investigated with any rigor, and even then it's limited, is the vaccine hypothesis. There have been these very extensive epidemiological studies of vaccines and autism, in France, in Denmark, in the United States, hundreds of thousands of children included. That's actually, surprisingly come up empty-handed. Probably the best study is the naturalistic one where thimerosal, which was purposed to be the source of autism--it's a mercury additive and mercury's a neurotoxin, that was a preservative in many of the vaccines through the 90s. IT CAME OUT OF ALL VACCINES IN 2001 and you don't see a drop-off in that Dept. of Disability Services graph after 2001, 2002. So I think that's one, you can't say it's never had any impact, BUT YOU CAN CERTAINLY SAY IT'S NOT DRIVING THIS HUGE INCREASE."

So many things have changed according since the 1980s according to Insel. Smiling broadly he told us the list is enormous and we've barely begun to crack that.

QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

A dad challenged Insel on the claim that the mercury was removed from ALL vaccines in 2001. Insel quickly admitted that the dad was right, it's still in the flu shot and maybe some others.

The dad brought up aluminum in vaccines. Insel didn't address it.

The dad asked why polio was an emergency for the U.S. when it affected one in 5,000 people, but one percent of children with autism isn't. Insel ignored the question.

Instead, Insel tried to change the subject. Throwing up his arms, Insel lamented, "My argument is that there are about 900 things we could be looking and that is the only thing we've looked at so far, at least epidemiologically. THE SIGNAL ISN'T THERE--YET.

"I just don't want to get wrapped around that issue. I want to look at some of the some of the other 899 because we might miss a really big signal if we get focused on deciding prematurely that we really can explain this, we just haven't done enough studies of it. We've done some and those studies are so far uniformly negative.

"In terms of the vaccine stuff, if thimerosal were really driving this 13-fold increase...I just can't imagine...we'd have seen some effect of taking it out of 90 percent of the vaccines, so you know, I just think it's time to look elsewhere for what might be driving."

Next the questioner brought up biomedical treatment and recovery. He said his autistic son recovered with biomedical help. The father wanted to know why Insel wasn't interested this. He said the children with autism are "sick kids."

Insel jumped on the topic. "We've just launched a study of recovery. I couldn't agree with you more. This field came..., I couldn't agree with you more. Think where we were 30 years ago. This was about blame the parents. It was due to refrigerator mothers. And all of the interventions were based on that hypothesis with a psychological bent to them. What I'm telling you now is, ...this is a biological problem based on a problem with synapse formation. There's no reason to think that this limited to the brain. We know many of these kids have other symptoms and signs ...that cause the most problem. I'd be the first to tell you that we need to be thinking very broadly about various forms of this disorder, some of which are likely going to have lots of other systems affected. Actually, I'd tell you the same thing for depression. ... The brain is connected to the rest of the body."

Obviously, if it weren't for the audience, Insel wouldn't have brought up the study of biomedical treatment and recovery. He didn't mention it in the talk, only at the questions at the end. Insel talked about this recovery study five months ago, but I've not heard anything about it.

Nothing ever changes in what Insel says. In the MIT speech, he describes autism as "a really important public health problem." (And that phrase is especially infuriating to me. It sounds like we need cleaner drinking water.)

Insel pretended that the whole controversy over vaccines was about thimerosal. He knows that's not the case but it's easier to sell his message if he covers up the real issue.

Insel may be able to dismiss the vaccine link and dilute the topic by talking about genes and older dads, but those numbers continue to haunt him. THE INCREASE IS REAL. IT REALLY IS. THERE'S NOTHING INSEL CAN DO ABOUT IT. He tries to downplay it, look calm, sound concerned, but not worried. That's only going to work for a little while longer. Very soon autism won't be just a health care issue. It's going to an economic crisis for this country. A massive dependent population of young autistic adults is about to descend on the U.S. Insel knows this. He quietly admits it, but he does it at places like MIT and NIH. Insel isn't on ABC News telling us the increase is real.

If I were in that audience, my question would be, When are you going to alert the American people to the tsunami that's coming?

Comments

Carol, I think so too. I have also heard that same theory several times from other people on this blog too.

Damn federal government environmentalists working with the federal heatlh agenecies to reduce the population.

Sure we all here sound like nuts!

BUT IF is what they are trying to do they have not gotten what they want exactly. I meet a young 24 year old man who had 16 bothers and sisters. Plenty of large families like that around, and they are usually the most down trodden. He, the 24 year old, himself had four kids, started when he was 14. So, there--- they (the government) are getting rid of the more educated that believe everything they are told while the good ol'e boys and their girlfriends will just keep breeding like rabbits.

I think that the medical and pharmaceutical establishments are waiting it out. Assuming the most injured will not reproduce, their genetic susceptibility will die out of the population leaving the less injured as lifetime customers. By that time, everyone will have forgotten what it meant to be healthy.

When I was growing up, I didn't know anyone with asthma or a peanut allergy or autism.

I'm not surprised Insel is now embracing the idea of an increase-- pharma stock holders must be ecstatic. He's talked about developing a vaccine for autism-- the epidemic is the ready-made fear factor to sell the vaccine. And I suspect he's open to the idea of children "getting better", but only because pharma wants to sell drugs for autism with that promise. Insel is an enemy of biomed and always will be.

The keys to Insel's agenda are in a few of his statements. First his bit about "synapses", if history is any guide, must correspond to bandaid drugs in the pipeline, which will never address underlying cause and would typically induce a miriad of side effects which will then need drugging and on and on.

Then this statement: "Actually, I'd tell you the same thing for depression. ... The brain is connected to the rest of the body."

How the hell is autism like "depression"?

Depression is not a disease and it's certainly not caused by antidepressant-deficiency. Pharma made it into a disease to sell drugs which can...induce depression. If physical conditions and toxins can lend to depression, then the "disease" is whatever's causing this effect and that's what should be treated. Generations of children sickening in droves doesn't help with depression in the general population either, frankly

So in one sense Insel's right: depression and autism have something in common. Both can be brought to us by pharma.

This guy is either really dumb (which I doubt) or really bad at playing dumb. I suggest he spend about $50 at the bargain book store and pick up copies of Eisenstein, Wakefield, Bock, and Kirby's books. Maybe then he would have some clue as to what is behind this. This is ridiculous and is an absolute insult to those of us who live this nightmare everyday. He should have his genetics tested.

I took a look at your linked "Droning about autism" site and in light of much of the research you have highlighted that supports "a disreactive immune process" involvement I don't understand how you can come down so hard on us for, as you put it, "dismissing evidence of prenatal disturbances to neuroanatomy in autism," especially when neuroanatomical abnormalities have not been identified as a common presentation in the spectrum of autism conditions. From your evaluation of "Immune transcriptome alterations in the temporal cortex of subjects with autism" (Neurobiol Dis June 2008) you identified the following, "The deregulation of these gene pathways might indicate that the profound molecular differences observed in the temporal cortex of autistic subjects possibly originate from an inability to attenuate a cytokine activation signal," as being noteworthy, yourself stating that it "packs alot of punch." I agree and furthermore I can believe that the inability to attentuate a cytokine activation signal may very well be a requisite precondition that sets in motion a child's regression that parents witness following a period of normal development. As in Hannah Poling's case, it was immune stimulation that exceeded her metabolic reserve that was determined to be the cause of her neuro-immune crash resulting in symptoms than manifested as autism-like. There was no determination regarding the genesis of her mitochondrial weakness. Neuroanatomical disturbances would not be a necessary prerequisite to explain autism in such cases. Many parents who were blind-sided when their children suffered severe regressions of abilities have identified temporal influences that appeared to them to be involved. It is incumbent upon the scientific and medical community to convince us that manipulating the immune system of children during routine immunization doesn't result in a dysreactive immune process culminating in a neuro-immune crash. Epidemiological studies are what we have been given, and there are some among us who are literate enough to evaluate the ones most often cited as disproving an autism-vaccine association as being bad science, purposefully bad science with no other explanation than an intention to deceive. Otherwise we would have to believe incompetence is running rampant in the halls of science at its highest levels.

Yes, thanks to Dr. Insell, our critics can no longer claim it's strictly genetic, nor make claims of diagnostic substitution, nor deny the significant increase in prevalence. For that Dr. Insell has made a positive contribution to the public and scientific dialogue on autism. But, until he removes the roadblocks he guards that keep research of timely and effective treatments from reaching our physically sick and suffering children, I can't endorse his continued leadership of autism research.

You've drawn my attention to research that contributes to understanding immune system involvement in ASD. Why is it parents are not allowed to ask for unbiased research into the toxicology of vaccine ingredients or the epigenetic affects of unnatural immune stimulation/activation?

thank you, Bob Moffitt for your comments to PD. Like CMO said, the name of the game is "shrug and play stupid." Let's confound things by really continuing the mercury (along with other neurotoxins like aluminum) and then say, "see it's still happening even though there's no mercury." How facile. They must think people are stupid. But parents aren't stupid. They can be half dead from exhaustion, yet not stupid.

I agree with Bob Moffit, and so do ALOT of other people. "Passionless Drone" would actually be a good decription for Dr. Insel. No passion in his arguments against vaccine causation droning over and over the same party line: "The only thing we DO Know is that Vaccines don't cause autism". YEAH RIGHT.

What changed in the last 20 years that is driving this autism epidemic? What happened in 1986? The law was passed granting immunity from vaccine liability. What happened after that? The vaccine schedule skyrocketed to 49 doses by age 6. Gee what a coincidence...

What happens when all these children get tested for heavy metals? Mercury and/or Aluminum levels off the charts. Gee what a coincidence...

What about all these family members who witnessed their children regress into autism directly related to vaccines? We all imagined it? We all tell the exact same story. Gee what a coincidence...

What about all this intestinal damage after MMR vaccines? Intestinal damages and autism from thousands and thousands of children all over the world. Gee what a coincidence...

What about the Amish and other large groups who don't vaccinate having minimal autism rates? And what about the fact that the countries with the lowest vaccine schedules also have the lowest autism rates? Gee what a coincidence...

Tom Insel has heard the evidence and he KNOWS that vaccines are the primary causative factor in autism, but he is going to keep his mouth shut and do what he is told so that he can retire in peace with a comfy high paying job with Big Pharma. He plays the part well: "Gee we just don't know what is causing this autism epidemic. Gee we just have no idea."

If Tom Insel really just couldn't see the forest for the trees, I would just tell him to "get his head out of his ass", but he KNOWS...so what can we tell him then? Here is a message for him: Eventually in the near future, the truth about the vaccines is going to finally be fully exposed. So he had better decide which side of the fence he is going to be on now, before it's too late and he ends up tarred and feathered.

If YOU are so confident that YOU and INSEL know for certain that vaccines are not contributing to the inexplicable, dramatic increase in autism.. please .. by all means .. use YOUR intellectual power to influence DR. INSEL to have the IACC conduct the "vaccinated vs unvaccinated" that would be of PRIMARY BENEFIT TO YOU AND THOSE SUPPORTING YOUR POSITION.

My friend, unless or until a scientific, independent study of BOTH populations is done .. YOUR POSITION IS UNPROVEN .. and .. the preception remains that public health officials are loathed to do this common sense study because THEY ARE AFRAID OF WHAT SUCH A STUDY MAY PROVE.

After all .. "No evidence" of a link between vaccines and autism is just what is says: NO EVIDENCE!! In other words .. the absence of evidence .. IS NOT EVIDENCE.

Insel doesn't have urgency about this. And he doesn't have to. When he retires, he'll just walk away, taking his very very generous retirement and HEALTH CARE benefits with him.

And a year later, will he be working for Big Pharma? (Anyone taking bets?)

To Insel, autism is an 'interesting' or 'intriguing' question. But he doesn't have to solve it, and quite obviously he isn't going to.

Think about earlier times in his career. He was working on oxytocin, working with someone else. Then came the change of job, and it was a big promotion. Do we ever hear him talk wistfully about oxytocin? Send the URL if you've ever seen or heard any such thing.

Bottom line: Insel doesn't really care and doesn't have to. He has other fish to fry, and 1% of the population can go to Hell. And are going . . .

So, it sounds like Dr. Insel is still clinging to the "ABV" theory of causation, meaning "Anything But Vaccines". He's taken some steps -- yes, autism is increasing -- yes, there are environmental factors and it's not just genetic -- yes, the brain is connected to the body -- and we really are interested in recovery stories.

But he draws the line at acknowledging or exploring vaccine causation. He's sticking by the old lines: vaccines have been thoroughly studied, vaccines are safe, time to move on, pay no attention to those vaccine injured children. (I'm sure he knows that vaccines have not in fact been adequately studied -- far from it!)

And thimerosal has been removed but there's still autism, proving thimerosal safe!? Never mind that he says there are multiple kinds of autism (so if some don't get autism from thimerosal, how does that prove that nobody gets autism from thimerosal?) Never mind that environmental mercury has been increasing. Never mind that there is still thimerosal in some vaccines, there are still other substances in vaccines which can adversely affect the nervous, GI, & immune systems, and the number of vaccines keep going up. And never mind that the CDC's latest stats are for children born in 1998 -- turning 8 in 2006. What are the children with autism like who did not receive so much thimerosal? Anecdotally, I have heard that the younger cases today are milder -- whether that's true, I don't know -- I don't think this has been studied.

And he says that "One of the biggest risk factors for developing ASD...appears to be paternal age." Before birth control existed, people kept having babies until the women reached menopause. People started having babies earlier on average than today, but they kept having babies for longer. Among babies born to older parents, there was an increased rate of disorders involving the wrong number of chromosones such as Downs syndrome. But among those born later in their parents' lives there weren't a lot of kids with autism.

For Insel or anyone to imply that they know the rate of autism for kids born after the so-called removal of mercury in the vaccines, I suggest they read my article from July 2009 where I write:

"....the vast majority of autism diagnosis since 2003 have been in the age groups that received preservative level infant vaccines."

I also quote the Minnesota Department of Health. In their study called "Autism Spectrum Disorders Among Preschool Children Participating in the Minneapolis Public Schools Early Childhood Special Education Programs" they report:

“Current statistics accurately characterizing baseline ASD prevalence in populations of preschool children WERE NOT AVAILABLE for Minnesota OR THE U.S. Therefore, the MDH determined that a reanalysis of the MPS dataset using epidemiological methods and definitions was a necessary first step toward better understanding the occurrence of ASD among children attending MPS preschool programs.”

Of course I realize that the rate on young children is still high, my wife's graphs show that the rates are still far below that of teenagers. As the MDH clearly states, accurate rates for preschoolers are not even available. Read my AoA post for more details.

...."In terms of the vaccine stuff, if thimerosal were really driving this 13-fold increase...I just can't imagine...we'd have seen some effect of taking it out of 90 percent of the vaccines, so you know, I just think it's time to look elsewhere for what might be driving."

The most recent official CDC numbers are for children born in 1998. They have no real numbers since the removal "of some or most" of the Thimerosal....

The damn mercury flu shots are always going to keep the Autism numbers up, and then there will be the endless confusion of who got the mercury free shots and who did not...

Again Insel talks about epidemeolgy, which is truly the science of statistical bullshit...

For Dr. Insel & his associates, world class "shrug and play stupid" is the name of the game.

He stated that we should have seen a drop after thimerosal removal. Does anyone know when the last vial left the pediatricians offices? Will it take a couple of generations to clear mercury from the bodies of fully vaccinated young women? What if autism is a sensitivity to thimerosal,one that opens a different door than toxicity? I believe it's been mentioned that approx.16% of the population could be sensitive. If this is the case then dose wouldn't play into this at all, thimerosal remains in many vaccines in trace amounts due to production , the amount passed on to the fetus could alone set up an infant for sensitivity.

I know that people in the position of being able to highly influence autism policies and such are suppose to know things. But, in reality they don't have the time to learn stuff. I spent hours daily for four years to learn all this stuff. I started learning when I quit work, even though my job entailed dealing with autism, I didn't learn anything about recovery from my job. I learned via this Internet from others who know. So, can someone let the people in these positions know that they simply have to start asking those who HAVE recovered children or doctors who HAVE recovered children what's really going on because obviously they are the ONLY ones who know. That is what I did to recover my children.

Tom Insel is good asset for our community; the fact that his vision exceed vaccines is far, far outweighed by his acknowledgement that the increase is not imaginary.

This is an individual the autism community should be thrilled to have in such a position. He seems to get a lot of heat on this blog, but I am left wondering if anyone who thinks his work is so lacking has considered the likelyhood of an alternate candidate that is focussing to a much greater extent on genetics? By way of example, can anyone name another individual they realistically think might be appointed to that position that has a superior vision?

A wholesale dismissal of the existence of evidence of prenatal disturbances to neuroanatomy in autism because it is discordant with your personal experiences of vaccine related regressions does nothing but give the appearance of scientific illiteracy; the kiss of death if your intent is to modify research directions or policy. And this is coming from someone who is extremely skeptical of the narrative concerning the quality of our observations regarding vaccines!

Tom Insel is likely correct when he asserts that autism is 10, 20, or 40 disorders (or many more). This leaves room for a constellation of interactions, including vaccines, to be playing a part in what we are observing. If you would like to be part of the discussion, it is imperative that you not be sidelined because you do not appear to be able to accept the obvious; the evidence for forces other than vaccines is present and not the result of a conspiracy.

Noone has to go bankrupt but the gov't could create a national trust fund for our kids. A tax on the Pharmacuetical industry could fund the trust. Trust money could be used to fund public education, school education programs, medical treatment centers, research, group homes, recreational, job training and life skills programs.

A similar type of program was done for industry to clean up toxic waste sites it's known as Superfund.

"When are you going to alert the American people to the tsunami that's coming?"

Right after that $20 billion is distributed to shrimpers and hotel chains in the Gulf.

Can you imagine how much Merck et al would have to pull out of their wallets to pay for damages? It would bankrupt the entire pharmaceutical industry. Nah they would rather lead us all on a snipe hunt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt

After all the government's downside is that autism benefits the economy and aids in population control. The upside is that this is a possible attempt at designing a new worker bee destined to do detailed and tedious work without complaint and fight the enemy without question. The military has already enlisted young men with Asperger's and placed them into combat. Our children are the beta versions. While we are all on our little snipe hunt evil experiments may be taking place to save country club memberships from dropping.

Heck stranger things have happened in the movies and in best sellers and jeez we all know fact can be stranger than fiction.

There is a senate race I believe going on in N. Carolina.
I believe the democratic canidate that won the primary is autistic - Aspergers.

I saw him on television the other day. He acts pretty much like my son.

He lives in his father's basement.

His father tried for social security and I believe could not get it.

So, Tom Insel is right in a sense they are going to grow up and be just fine -esp now that biomedical is brought up to him by a Dad. He has said before that they will be just fine- something about engineers, but then he could be wrong because he said they could get a job not dealing with the public and yet here is this guy from N. Carolina.

Anne maybe you and I can get our sons elected into the Senate.

My son pretty much does what I want him too, (yes, it takes a while to get him away from his intense interests, like telling him five days ahead of time and then count down the days- but in the end he will do it).

So, we two mothers may soon hold some real power in our hands. Lets make a pact now that if our sons get to the Senate we not only fire Insel, but see if we can't get crimnal charges brought againest him because what he is doing is a crime.

Better yet, we could make it our life's mission that he never work at any job that might involve the public. Let us see how pleased he is with that arrangement.

Saddam Hussien had his "Baghdad Bob" .. and .. the IACC has "Dr. Insell".

Who can forget Baghdad Bob speaking to the Iraqi people on national television saying the "Revolutionary Guard has met and destroyed the infidel enemy forces in the dessert" .. as American tanks were at that very moment rolling unopposed throughout Baghdad.